growing leaders in Armenia

Most used debate formats – 2

Team Policy Debate

Team policy debate is the oldest, and still probably the most popular, format of debate practiced in American high schools. The proposition side is called the Affirmative or Aff, and the opposition side is called the Negative or Neg. Each side is a team composed of two debaters, so that there are four people participating in the debate (not including the judge and audience).

Format. A round of team policy debate consists of eight speeches. The first four speeches are called constructive speeches, because the teams are perceived as laying out their most important arguments during these speeches. The last four speeches are called rebuttals, because the teams are expected to extend and apply arguments that have already been made, rather than make new arguments. Here is a table of the eight speeches and their time limits:

Speech:

1AC

1NC

2AC

2NC

1NR

1AR

2NR

2AR

Time:

8 min.

8 min.

8 min.

8 min.

4 min.

4 min.

4 min.

4 min.

(A stands for Affirmative, N for Negative, C for Constructive, R for Rebuttal.)

Two things are of interest in this structure. First, the affirmative team both begins and ends the debate. Second, the negative team has two speeches in a row: the first negative rebuttal (1NR) immediately follows the second negative constructive (2NC). (Why? Well, because it’s always been done that way.)

In general, the members of each team alternate giving speeches, so that the same person gives both the 1AC and the 1AR, the same person gives the 2NC and the 2NR, etc. Occasionally, the rules will allow a change in this format. For example, affirmative teams will sometimes go “inside-outside” so that one person (usually the weaker member) gives the 1AC and the 2AR, while the other (stronger) debater gives the 2AC and the 1AR.

Usually, there is a 3-minute cross-examination period after each of the first four (constructive) speeches. The person who does the cross-examining is the person who will not be giving the next speech for his side. For instance, the person who will give the 2NC will cross-examine after the 1AC. (An exception to this rule is made when the affirmative team goes “inside-outside.”) When team policy debate is done without cross-examination periods, the speech times are often extended to 10 minutes for constructives and 5 minutes for rebuttals.

Resolutions. Resolutions in team policy debate are always of a policy nature, usually governmental policy. The affirmative team almost always defends the resolution by means of a particular example, known as a “case”; if they can show the example (case) to be true, then the general proposition is also shown to be true. For instance, the first resolution I ever encountered in team policy debate was, “The federal government should adopt a comprehensive, long-term agricultural policy in the United States.” Some typical cases teams ran under this resolution were: that the government should institute a program restricting the use of pesticides; that the government should institute a program to insure genetic diversity of crops; that the government should institute a program requiring farmers to switch from land-farming to hydroponics (i.e., growing food in great big tanks of water); that the government should abolish crop subsidies and price supports; etc.

Style. Team policy debate is focused on evidence gathering and organizational ability. Persuasiveness is not considered important — or at least, not as important as covering ground and reading plenty of evidence. The best teams have huge fileboxes packed to the gills with evidence on their own affirmative case and all the possible cases they might have to oppose. If you ever walk into a high-level team debate round, expect to see debaters talking at extremely high speeds, reading out the contents of page after page of evidence, gasping for breath between points, and using lots of jargon (“I cite Jorgenson, Jorgenson post-dates Bronstein, that kills PMR 4, flow that Aff!”). There is very little discussion of values such as freedom, justice, equality, etc.; usually, the ultimate criterion on any issue is how many dead bodies will result from taking or not taking a particular action. This form of debate can be fun, it encourages good research and organizational skills, and it is good for getting novice debaters used to speaking in front of people. But if you want to learn how to speak persuasively, this form of debate is not for you.